parallel#

parallel adj *like, alike, similar, analogous, comparable, akin, uniform, identical

Analogous words: *same, identical, equal, equivalent: corresponding, correlative (see RECIPROCAL)

parallel n

1 Comparison, contrast, antithesis, collation

Analogous words: *likeness, similarity, resemblance, similitude

Contrasted words: *dissimilarity, unlikeness, difference, divergence, divergency

2 Parallel, counterpart, analogue, correlate are comparable when they denote a person or thing that corresponds in essentials to another person or thing, or closely resembles the latter in the points under consideration.

Parallel is especially appropriate when the two things compared are so like each other that their lack of divergence suggests two parallel lines; the term is often used in negative expres-sions

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we shall seek in vain a parallel for this situation

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it is hard to find a parallel for this mode of procedure

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none but thyself can be thy parallel— Pope

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Sometimes, especially when actual comparison is implied, the word suggests that the two things follow a similar course, order, or line of development

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cultural parallels found in the two hemispheres— R. W. Murray

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many interesting parallels are drawn with the historical plays of Shakespeare— Times Lit. Sup.

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Counterpart often suggests a complementary and sometimes an obverse relationship

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the two halves of a globe are counterparts of each other

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not an elaboration of Romanticism, but rather a counterpart to it, a second flood of the same tide— Edmund Wilson

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More commonly, however, the word implies a duplication, especially in another sphere, or age, or language

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Synthetic chemistry has produced many a drug or perfume that has no counterpart in nature

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he saw that there was no mood of the mind that had not its counterpart in the sensuous life— Wilde

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French big businessmen and reactionary politicians have the support of their counterparts in the U.S.— Gorrell

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Analogue usually implies a more remote likeness than the preceding words and suggests comparison with something familiar and tangible for the sake of clarifying an explanation or enforcing an argument. Like counterpart, it often involves reference to something in another sphere, or order, or genus

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the gill in fishes is an analogue of the lung in quad- rupeds

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the deepest and simplest reports of man's trouble have always been told in animal analogues— Morley

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civilization is ... the process by which primitive packs are transformed into an analogue, crude and mechanical, of the social insects' organic communities— Huxley

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Correlate retains its primary implication of correspondence, but does not retain that of a complementary relationship. A thing which is a correlate of another is what corresponds to it from another point of view or in a different order of viewing

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the scientist asks what is the physical correlate of the rainbow

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words are the mental correlates of direct experience— Weaver

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fear persisted, and with it persisted an animosity toward the sister. Undoubtedly this is the psychological correlate of the incest taboo— Dollard

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